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Monday, October 6, 2014

Everyone calm down, there is no “bee-pocalypse”

Original link: http://qz.com/101585/everyone-calm-down-there-is-no-bee-pocalypse/

The media is abuzz once again with stories about dying bees. According to a new report from the USDA, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD),
the mysterious affliction causing honey bees to disappear from their
hives. Possible factors include parasites, viruses, and a form of
pesticide known as neonicotinoids. Whatever the cause, the results of a
recent beekeeper survey suggest that the problem is not going away. For
yet another year, nearly one-third of US honey bee colonies did not make it through the winter.

Given the variety of crops that rely on honey bees for pollination,
the colony collapse story is an important one. But if you were to rely
on media reports alone, you might believe that honey bees are in short
supply. NPR recently declared that we may have reached “a crisis point for crops.” Others warned of an impending “beepocalypse” or a “beemageddon.”

In a rush to identify the culprit of the disorder, many journalists
have made exaggerated claims about the impacts of CCD. Most have
uncritically accepted that continued bee losses would be a disaster for
America’s food supply. Others speculate about the coming of a second
“silent spring.” Worse yet, many depict beekeepers as passive,
unimaginative onlookers that stand idly by as their colonies vanish.

This sensational reporting has confused rather than informed
discussions over CCD. Yes, honey bees are dying in above average
numbers, and it is important to uncover what’s causing the losses, but
it hardly spells disaster for bees or America’s food supply.

Consider the following facts about honey bees and CCD.

For starters, US honey bee colony numbers are stable,
and they have been since before CCD hit the scene in 2006. In fact,
colony numbers were higher in 2010 than any year since 1999. How can
this be? Commercial beekeepers, far from being passive victims, have
actively rebuilt their colonies in response to increased mortality from
CCD. Although average winter mortality rates have increased from around
15% before 2006 to more than 30%, beekeepers have been able to adapt to
these changes and maintain colony numbers.

Source: USDA NASS Honey Production ReportRebuilding
colonies is a routine part of modern beekeeping. The most common method
involves splitting healthy colonies into multiple hives. The new hives,
known as “nucs,” require
a new queen bee, which can be purchased readily from commercial queen
breeders for about $15-$25 each. Many beekeepers split their hives late
in the year in anticipation of winter losses. The new hives quickly
produce a new brood and often replace more bees than are lost over the winter.
Other methods of rebuilding colonies include buying packaged bees
(about $55 for 12,000 worker bees and a fertilized queen) or replacing
the queen to improve the health of the hive.

“The state of the honey bee population—numbers, vitality, and
economic output—are the products of not just the impact of disease but
also the economic decisions made by beekeepers and farmers,” economists
Randal Rucker and Walter Thurman write in a summary of their working paper
on the impacts of CCD. Searching through a number of economic measures,
the researchers came to a surprising conclusion: CCD has had almost no
discernible economic impact.

But you don’t need to rely on their study to see that CCD has had
little economic effect. Data on colonies and honey production are
publicly available from the USDA.
Like honey bee numbers, US honey production has shown no pattern of
decline since CCD was first detected. In 2010, honey production was 14%
greater than it was in 2006. (To be clear, US honey production and
colony numbers are lower today than they were 30 years ago, but as
Rucker and Thurman explain, this gradual decline happened prior to 2006 and cannot be attributed to CCD).

Source: USDA NASS Honey Production ReportWhat
about the prices of queen bees and packaged bees? Because of higher
winter losses, beekeepers are forced to purchase more packaged queen and
worker bees to rebuild their lost hives. Yet even these prices seem unaffected.
Commercial queen breeders are able to rear large numbers of queen bees
quickly, often in less than a month, putting little to no upward
pressure on bee prices following CCD.

And what about the prices consumers pay for crops pollinated by honey
bees? Are these skyrocketing along with fears of the beepocalypse?
Rucker and Thurman find that the cost of CCD on almonds, one of the most
important crops from a honey bee pollinating perspective, is trivial.
The implied increase in the shelf price of a pound of Smokehouse Almonds
is a mere 2.8 cents, and the researchers consider that to be an
upper-bound estimate of the impact on fruits and vegetables.

There is, however, one measure that has been significantly affected
by CCD—and that’s the pollination fees beekeepers charge almond
producers. These fees have more than doubled in recent years, though the
fees began rising a few years before CCD was reported. Rucker and
Thurman attribute a portion of this increase to the onset of CCD. But
even this impact has a bright side: For many beekeepers, the increase in
almond pollination fees has more than offset the costs they have
incurred rebuilding their lost colonies.

Overcoming CCD is not without its challenges, but beekeepers have
thus far proven themselves adept at navigating such changing conditions.
Honey bees have long been afflicted with a variety of diseases. The Varroa mite,
a blood-thirsty bee parasite, has been a scourge of beekeepers since
the 1980s. While CCD has resulted in larger and more mysterious losses,
the resourcefulness of beekeepers remains.

Hannah Nordhaus, author of The Beekeeper’s Lament,
warned that the scare stories evoked by CCD should serve as a
cautionary tale to environmental journalists. “By engaging in simplistic
and sometimes misleading environmental narratives—by exaggerating the
stakes and brushing over the inconvenient facts that stand in the way of
foregone conclusions­­—we do our field, and our subjects, a
disservice,” she wrote in her 2011 essay “An Environmental Journalist’s Lament.”

“The overblown response to CCD in the media stems from a failure to
appreciate the resilience of markets in accommodating shocks of various
sorts,” write Rucker and Thurman. The ability of beekeepers and other
market forces to adapt has kept food on the shelves, honey in the
cupboard, and honey bees buzzing. Properly understood, the story of CCD
is not one of doom and gloom, but one of the triumph and perseverance of
beekeepers.

About Me

My formal training is in chemistry. I also read a great deal of physics and biology. In fact I very much enjoy reading in general, mostly science, but also some fiction and history. I also enjoy computer programming and writing. I like hiking and exploring nature. I also enjoy people; not too much in social settings, but one on one; also, people with interesting or "off-beat" minds draw me to them. I also have some interest in Buddhism.

These days I get a lot more information from the internet, primarily through Wiki. Some television, e. g., documentaries, PBS shows like "Nova" and "Nature".

My favorite science writers are Jacob Bronowski ("The Ascent of Man") and Richard Dawkins (his "The Blind Watchmaker" is right up there up Ascent). I also have a favorite writer on Buddhism, Pema Chodron. Favorite films are "Annie Hall" (by Woody Allen), "The Maltese Falcon", "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "As Good As It Gets", "Conspiracy Theory", Monty Python's "Search For The Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian", and a few others which I can't think about at the moment.

I love a number of classical works (Beethoven's "Pastoral", "Afternoon Of A Fawn" and "Clair De Lune" by Debussey , Pachelbel's "Canon" come to mind. My favorite piece is probably Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". But I also enjoy a great deal in modern music, including many jazz pieces, folk songs by people like Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, a hodgepodge of pieces by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Niel Young, and practically everything the Beatles wrote.

My life over the last few years has been in some disarray, but I am finally "getting it together.". As I am very much into the sciences and writing, I would like to move more in this direction. I also enjoy teaching. As for my political leanings, most people would probably describe as basically liberal, though not extremely so. My religious leanings are to the absolutely none: I've alluded to my interest in Buddhism, but again this is not any supernatural or scientifically untested aspect of it but in the way it provides a powerful philosophy and set of practical, day to day methods of dealing with myself and the other human beings.